


Time After Time

by laniew1



Category: American Idol
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-14
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 05:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniew1/pseuds/laniew1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He figures it out pretty early on. He’s a kid the first time it happens, eleven years old and he’d been so scared by the riders on horseback and the clang of metal hitting metal that he’d huddled in the middle of tall bushes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Time After Time – Part 1**

 

 

 

He figures it out pretty early on. He’s a kid the first time it happens, eleven years old and he’d been so scared by the riders on horseback and the clang of metal hitting metal that he’d huddled in the middle of tall bushes.

He’d fallen asleep as the fight moved off and when he woke up he was in his backyard and his mother was screaming his name.

When it happens again he braces himself and goes out.

There’s blood and bodies and evidence of a pretty fierce battle.

There’s a guy on horseback, and when he sees David standing there he draws his sword and David runs away.

The guy is waiting the next time David ventures out. He’s built a fire and he silently offers David a metal cup. There’s a stew in it of some kind.

David has been pretty scared the guy was going to hunt him down and kill him, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep so he could go back home, so he’s starving.

He stops short of licking the bowl clean, the guy laughs and takes the cup from David’s hands and scoops more of the stew into it.

“Eat,” he says when he hands it back.

He sounds British; David has seen enough of those movies that his mom completely loves to recognize the accent.

“Abraham,” the man says, gesturing to himself.

“David,” he says between mouthfuls of stew. “David Cook.” It’s awesome; the stew his mom makes doesn’t taste anything like this.

When he finally relaxes enough to go to sleep, he goes home, his parents have called the cops and he’s been listed as a runaway.

He’s been gone two days.

His mother cries and clings to him. His father looks like he can’t decide between hugging him or throttling him.

With the cops there it’s an easy decision; he just stands there, hands at his sides.

David doesn’t do it again. Not for a couple of years.

 

******************************************************************************

 

It takes him a while to control it. To figure out how to wake up in his own bed so his parents don’t think he’s runaway. To figure out how to force himself to go or to stay.

He can only do it when he’s asleep; pretty much it’s a crapshoot half the time whether he goes or not anyway.

He does get the whole waking up in his own bed thing down though, so he counts it a win.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He’s got a band and a career; they’re pretty successful in their little neck of the woods.

David wants to be bigger; the guys want to be bigger as well.

He does American Idol because what the hell. It’ll give him (and by default the rest of the band) some exposure. If he does well, he might even get a deal out of it.

He makes friends with a couple of the others. Carly and Michael are his closest. It helps to have allies in the house.

He doesn’t expect to make it very far though, there’s a lot of talent on the stage each night. Every elimination he expects to be at the bottom and going home.

It doesn’t ever happen. He ends up in the top three, then the top two and then he’s singing on that stage by himself.

He can see his parents and Carly and Michael and all the others and he sings for them and any guy out there watching that had a dream they thought was pretty impossible.

The interviews take forever and when they finally let him go back to the hotel (‘take a couple of days David, relax’) he thinks he falls asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

He wakes up to metal and swords and the sound of someone yelling.

He’s on his feet and moving, he should be running away, he has no weapons; instead he’s running toward the noise.

He sees the man that had fed him, protected him so many years ago. Abraham is fighting with another. Behind him is a kid, a young boy that looks completely and utterly terrified.

He sees David first and his eyes widen, his mouth opens like he’s going to yell and David makes a gesture that he hopes says stop.

The kid takes a step back, then another, back pressed to a tree. David sees that he has a knife in his hand; if Abraham falls that knife isn’t going to protect him though.

There’s wood all around, fallen tree branches and cut pieces that must have been for a fire that had not yet been started.

He grabs one and descends.

He’s pretty sure that Abraham sees him, but he makes no movement that betrays him and it allows David a clean shot.

The guy falls and Abraham stands there, chest heaving, sword in hand. David looks away when he kills the guy, looks instead at the kid who still looks terrified.

“You okay?” he asks, Abraham glances over at him then back at David.

The boy nods slowly, eyes skittering back and forth between them and the dead body at Abraham’s feet.

“I’m…” the boy falters, bites his lip instead and looks over at Abraham.

“He’s fine,” Abraham says gruffly.

The boy nods again and puts his knife away.

“I’m fine,” he parrots. He doesn’t sound British like Abraham does. He sounds like an American and David doesn’t know how that’s possible but he doesn’t question it too closely.

Abraham drags the body into the trees and the boy collects the pieces of wood that must have been for their fire and arranges them. He stares at it helplessly when he’s done.

“This is Lord Cook,” Abraham says when he comes back, he squats in front of the pile of wood, shifts a few pieces and does something with his hands that seconds later have a small fire going.

The boy jerks his head but doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t look at David either. Just watches the flames of the fire like they’re the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

“This is Archie,” Abraham says. “He’s my ward… for the time being anyway.”

Abraham looks over at the boy thoughtfully. “He seems to attract trouble.”

“I didn’t _do_ anything,” Archie sputters defensively. “I was getting wood, just like you said and he…” he gestures his hands in circles. “He came out of _nowhere_ and there was a _sword_ and he was telling me to take my _clothes off_ and, and…”

“See, attracts trouble,” Abraham grins toothily at David.

“ _You_ are being _mean_ , Abraham,” Archie says sulkily. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“He’s going to the castle to start his training.”

“I’m going to be _horrible_ at it, I can’t even hold a sword right, I’m going to die a painful and messy death, my parents will blame you of course,” Archie says sadly.

“He wants to be a minstrel instead or maybe the court Jester, can never tell with the boy.”

“ _You are still being mean_ ,” Archie says pointedly.

“Painful and messy?” David asks. The kid doesn’t look big enough to be a page or a knight, or to actually be away from his parents.

“He’s actually going into training to be a steward, the king is in want of new one,” Abraham says.

“That’s because the old one ran off with one of the queen’s maids and half of the gold that the king left in his possession.”

“They got the gold back.”

“But not the maid,” Archie says heatedly.

“She didn’t want to come back, they gave her the choice.”

David grins watching the two of them banter back and forth; he wonders where the kid came from, how he came to be traveling with Abraham.

“Where are you headed Lord Cook?” Archie asks politely, he’s picking at piece of bread that Abraham had torn off and handed him. David waves the bread away when offered.

Abraham has just killed someone and dragged his body off into the woods, David is pretty sure he hadn’t washed his hands or anything since then. God only knows what he could catch.

Besides he can’t stay, not really. The label may have given him some time off to catch his breath but his family and Carly and Michael most certainly have not.

They’re expecting him for breakfast. He’ll probably be late if he hangs out much longer. But he’s having fun listening to the two of them.

“You can call me David,” he says.

“No I can’t,” Archie says looking completely scandalized.

“I heard the sounds of a fight, I thought I would offer my assistance,” he offers. It sounds lame, but both of them seem to buy it.

“Well we thank you regardless,” Abraham says, Archie smiles at him, looking innocent and demure.

David stands and offers his hand to Abraham when he stands as well. Archie comes to his feet and bows slowly; David offers him a smirk and a wink with his return bow.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He wakes in his own bed and his phone is ringing.

“Where the hell are you?” Michael is asking on the other end.

“Sleeping,” David mutters.

“Still?” Michael asks incredulously. “You’re turning into a complete layabout now that you’re a big rock star.”

“Were you in interviews until 2 am, I didn’t think so,” David states. “Give me five minutes to wash my face and not look like I’ve only had,” he glances at the clock, “four hours of sleep.”

He drops the phone and runs a hand over his face. He’d always liked Abraham, he really likes Archie.

He’ll be going back, maybe he’ll take a couple of days and make a trip of it, make a trip to this castle that Abraham and Archie were talking about.

He grins.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The label keeps him busy, pushing him into the studio, pushing him out on the road, pushing him to perform with the other idols.

He doesn’t get a chance to make any more then a couple of hour visits and that’s not nearly enough time to get to the castle.

He doesn’t see Archie again, though he does see Abraham who is quick to assure him that Archie is settling in fine and has not managed to die a painful and messy death as Archie had predicted.

“He’ll end up married before he ends up dead,” Abraham says. When David looks at him questioningly he shrugs. “He’s got a lot of suitors and they’re doing their best to be the one to dishonor him to force his hand.”

“He got money or something?” David asks. The boy was traveling with Abraham; he would have thought that anyone with any amount of money would have had more then one armed guard.

“He’s got the ear of the queen, that’s all he needs. If it comes to it she’ll pay his marriage fee from her own pocket.”

David fingers the metal cup in his hands, stares into the fire.

He doesn’t like the thought of Archie married off with practically no choice in the matter.

 

******************************************************************************

 

He takes a break. He’s about five seconds away from killing everyone and anyone that associates with him through his music. He needs five minutes to himself.

He rents a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, he tells Michael where’s he going and no one else. Michael promises to keep the wolves at bay and David leaves.

He doesn’t even unpack, just locks the doors and windows and lies down on the bed.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Abraham had drawn him a crude map on how to get to the castle. It’s about a days walk and he wonders why Abraham and Archie had stopped the first time that he’d met them when they were so close.

When he gets there it’s a flurry of activity and horses and people he doesn’t know.

He sees Archie in the courtyard and he’s walking slowly beside a young woman who must have some position of power since everyone else gives them a wide berth and bows when they approach her.

He waits for her to become engaged in conversation and slides up next to Archie when he stops to wait.

“I see you haven’t died a painful and messy death as of yet,” David says.

When Archie turns to look at him he’s smiling.

“Abraham said that he’d run into you a time or two,” Archie looks pleased, he looks like he’s blushing and he glances over at where the young woman is still deep in conversation like that might disguise it.

“Never had time enough to make it this far,” David says. “But I had a couple of days to kill, so…”

“Archie introduce me to your friend,” the young woman slides her hand into the curve of Archie’s elbow.

“Lord David Cook this is Her Royal Highness…”

“Archie you know better,” she scolds, interrupting him with an impish grin on her face. “I am Emilie, when we are not in the castle proper. You must be the David that Archie speaks of with such…”

“Your highness,” Archie’s scandalized voice makes an appearance. David wonders how long it took for Archie to be able to call this young woman Emilie instead of by her title.

He’s pretty sure that it’s an argument they’re still having.

“We’re having a ball this evening, visiting diplomats, it will most likely be long and boring. You should come and make sure that Archie dances like he’s supposed to.”

“I didn’t really bring anything like that to wear,” _or at all_ , David thinks.

“I have four left feet, I don’t dance,” Archie states.

“We will find you something, my husband will be about your size I believe,” she snaps her fingers and guards appear from thin air surrounding them. “I believe we’re ready to return to the castle proper,” she says.

David doesn’t think he imagines the look of relief on the guards faces.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The queen is a force to be reckoned with.

Despite his protests she puts him up in a room and the king does turn out to be about his size so she has Archie deliver clothes for him to wear.

Archie blushes when he shows up at his door and blushes even more when David invites him in; he stammers some excuse and bolts.

It takes David nine years to figure out how to get one of the outfits together, he scrubs at his boots until they don’t look like he spent the day walking through the woods and when the knock comes at his door he follows the guard assigned to him to the ballroom.

Archie is dressed in blue and silver and he once more blushes when he sees David.

Emilie grins when she sees him.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Archie has a crush, and apparently everyone knows about it.

“He talked about you pretty much non-stop when he got here,” the king ( _call me William_ ) is saying. “He said that you saved his life.”

“I didn’t really do anything, just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“Still, his mother is an old school friend of Emilie’s. We are indebted to you for making sure that he made it here safely.”

David wonders why, if Archie is the son of an old friend, he’d had only Abraham to protect him on his journey.

David looks out at where Archie had been tasked to dance with one of the queen’s nieces. He really can’t dance.

“We’re hoping to get him married off to someone of his choosing before it gets taken out of his hands,” the king looks at him with raised eyebrows and a knowing expression on his face.

David has no clue what the hell he’s talking about so he just nods in agreement.

“He’s turned everyone who has offered down, eventually one of them is just to going to take what they want and we’ll have to force the issue, he’s said that he’ll only say yes to one person, and though he’s not exactly identified that person I think we all know of who he speaks.”

“Well he should definitely have a choice in the matter at the very least, it’s his life after all,” David says. “That only seems fair, and I don’t think he would make a bad choice.”

The king nods emphatically.

“Emilie will be pleased to hear you say that,” William says. “She loves planning parties, and weddings are her most favorite event, unless it’s hers.”

“Did I hear something about a wedding?” Emilie asks, she appears at the kings’ side and David disguises a laugh with a cough when the king jumps.

“Lord Cook was just saying that Archie should of course have a choice in the matter of who he decides to give his hand to,” the king says.

Emilie grins; it’s a wild psychotic grin that David is pretty sure that he’s seen on Carly’s face when she’s scheming.

He doesn’t like it at all. It scares him a little. He doesn’t take a step back but only because it would look like he was getting ready to run away.

“That’s just wonderful, I should talk to Archie, we’ll want to do it as soon as possible,” Emilie has a vacant look in her face, like her mind is already a million miles away. David wonders if someone is going to tell him what the hell is going on.

“You said that you were only going to be here for the week?” Emilie says.

David nods slowly, unsure of what the correct answer is to that question. Not sure why it’s important.

Possibly coming to the castle had been a bad idea.

“We’ll have to make it a small wedding then, just those that already here,” Emilie twirls away heading in Archie’s direction.

The king is grinning and David has no clue what’s going on, he’s pretty sure that nothing he said could be construed as a marriage proposal and shouldn’t he have been asking Archie anyway?

He scratches his head and the king pats him on the back.

“Congratulations,” he says.

David just looks at him blankly. “Thanks?”

 

******************************************************************************

 

“What did you do?!” Archie is standing at his door; he doesn’t look scandalized at seeing David half-undressed. He’s too busy looking absolutely infuriated.

“I have no clue,” David says honestly.

“She thinks we’re getting _married_ ,” Archie says. His eyes are wide and look like they’re about to fall out of his head.

“I just said that you should have a choice in the matter,” David says.

“She hears what she wants to hear, so does he… I don’t _want_ to get married, I _can’t_ ,” Archie cries.

David hears doors opening and grabs Archie’s arm and drags him into the room. He closes the door behind them and leans against it.

Archie paces a short distance, back again. He looks completely and utterly frazzled. He’s the most adorable thing David has ever seen, he sort of wants to fold him up and keep him in his pocket for luck.

“It’s not like I want to _either_ ,” David says. “Look I’m only here for a couple more days, can’t we just put them off until…”

“Until _when_ , until you return and she can have had even _more_ time to plan a bigger, lavisher _spectacle_ where I can make a complete _fool_ of myself?!”

“It’s not like I’m even going to be here that much, why do they think this is even the solution?”

“Because the thought is if I’m married then people will stop trying to drag me into the closets or stable to have their way with me.”

“I don’t think that’ll stop even if you’re married,” David says thoughtfully. “I mean you _are_ kind of adorable.”

“Oh my gosh, you are _completely not helping_ figure out a way for us to get out of it.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen whether we’re helping or not,” David says.

Emilie strikes him as the type to barrel full steam ahead regardless of her opposition.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The wedding happens two days later.

David is pretty sure that Archie had tried unsuccessfully a half dozen times to talk her off her wedding induced steam-roller. When that hadn’t worked he’d tried to bolt, David had walked in on one of the kings knights pulling a resisting Archie into a stable stall during his attempt and he might have saw red and hit him.

The knight not Archie.

Archie was _engaged_ , you didn’t try to force yourself on someone who was promised to someone else even if neither one of them knew how they’d ended up promised or even _wanted_ to be in the first place.

That was just _not_ cool.

David is standing at the front of the chapel, the king had somehow ended up his best man and the queen is walking down the aisle right in front of Archie. She’s grinning and looking pleased with the entire world.

This completely can’t be real. Or happening. His mom will kill him if she finds out he got married and she wasn’t even at the wedding.

Abraham has got a death grip on Archie’s arm and if Archie gets any whiter he might manage to turn into a ghost at any possible second.

The women in attendance are already sobbing into their handkerchiefs, daintily brushing away tears. The men already look bored.

The wedding is long and David only realizes about halfway through that Archie isn’t really Archie’s first name. They have the same first name, which is kind of odd but whatever.

David-something-something-something-Archuleta is spoken by the priest and he’ll always be Archie to him so David just lets it go.

At the end of it rings are handed over to them to put on each others fingers. Archie’s hands are shaking and cold, his voice wavers when he says his vows. When David is given permission to kiss him he keeps it gentle and chaste.

He doesn’t think Archie can take much more, and he holds his hand as they walk back down the aisle.

He’s got a wedding night and then he’s supposed to leave the next day.

He’d delay leaving if he could, but Michael will completely flip out if he’s not back when he’s supposed to be.

 

******************************************************************************

 

The wedding night is simple, they have a party that is just shy of sixty people (kept small because Archie threatened mutiny if it was any bigger) and when darkness falls they’re pushed off to David’s room.

David is as gentle as possible, he’d thought about just letting Archie sleep but they’ll all know if they go down in the morning and haven’t consummated their marriage.

He doesn’t try anything fancy, he’s never really been in this position before and he lets Archie set his own pace, then takes over when he realizes that Archie will spend the whole night just kissing if David lets him.

When David is pretty sure that no one is going to think Archie a virgin when they walk down those stairs in the morning for Archie to say goodbye to him he lets Archie curl up on his side and cuddles up behind him.

He has a possessive hand lying on Archie’s hip, the room is still too warm for even sheets, though Archie keeps trying to protect his modesty by pulling them up. David is sweating; he pushes them back off again in short order.

He can see his wedding ring in the moonlight, shining against Archie’s skin.

He wonders if this is something that he should tell his parents about, he decides against it pretty quickly, it’s not like they’re ever going to get the opportunity to meet Archie after all.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Michael is there when he wakes up.

Michael scares the hell out of him when he wakes up, he rolls over his own bed and then falls off it when he hears the scream.

David will call it a scream, Michael will call it a manly yell. They will agree to disagree about it and there are only a few instances where David will bring it up and Michael will mutter under his breath about David appearing out of thin air.

David doesn’t bring it up very often. He doesn’t want to have to explain and Michael hadn’t believed him anyway, he’d given him some half-assed excuse that Michael was desperate to believe.

 

******************************************************************************

 

It takes him a day to notice the ring, and really Michael only drops the whole ‘appearing out of thin air’ thing because he’s worried that David managed to get himself hitched in the time he was gone.

“It’s a long story,” David says, he twists the ring on his hand; he should take it off before people that aren’t Michael see it and start asking questions.

“Does it have something to do with…” Michael waves his hand in the air and David shrugs.

“You’re sure a newly minted Mrs. David Cook isn’t going to be holding a press conference in a couple of days?” Michael asks.

“Highly unlikely,” David says. Archie would be a couple hundred years old, David’s pretty sure that’s not going to be a problem.

 

******************************************************************************

 

It takes him a month to go back. He’d almost wondered if he wasn’t going to, but he has two days off in a row and he puts the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door and he when he opens his eyes he’s there.

It only takes him a couple of hours to get there and there’s the usual bustle of people in the courtyard. The guards recognize him and take him to the queen almost immediately.

“Lord Cook,” she sounds surprised to see him and he narrows his eyes, but not in a way that could be construed as threatening. He’s slightly bothered by the fact that Archie isn’t hovering around her elbow looking pleased to see him.

“Archie said that he sent a letter off to you,” she says. She still sounds confused.

“A letter?” he asks. He doesn’t like where this is headed. He’d given Archie only the vaguest of ideas as to where his actual home was. He really hopes that he wasn’t silly enough to try and make a trip there on his own.

“His father took ill, Abraham took him home to be with his family several days after you left,” Emilie says.

“He did not say when he’d return, we’ve not received any letters from him since he left which has been troubling.”

“You’re sure he got there? I mean you know Archie, he pretty much attracts trouble.”

“I’m sure Abraham would have told us if they’d encountered difficulties,” Emilie says, though she doesn’t sound sure of that.

David shifts on his feet, something about this isn’t sitting completely right with him. He doesn’t like it at all.

 

******************************************************************************

 

There are several day trips after that where David tries to figure out where Archie has run off to.

Emilie has said that he returned home but David isn’t so sure.

He’s getting completely irritated and worried. There’s no sign of Abraham or Archie, none of the letters from the court are being returned but they’re not being answered either.

David is pretty sure that he’s dead; he takes the ring off and hides it in a box in the back of his dresser and tried to push Archie to the far recesses of his mind.

He only partially succeeds.

 

******************************************************************************

 

“Who signed us up for the Disney thing?” David asks.

It’s a joint project, the Idols and the kids from the very newest incarnation of MMC.

David finds it hilarious that these kids have their own shows and bounce all over the rest of their MMC counterparts shows, they have recording contracts and TV contracts and they probably make more in a year then David has in his entire life

Yet they have to do a joint concert with the Idols.

“I think it’s just one of those things,” Carly says, she’s flipping through a binder that the Disney group sent over.

It contains headshots and information on all the kids from MMC. David wonders if the MMC kids got the same information about them.

He doubts they care.

Carly tosses the binder in his lap and rubs a hand over his head. He bats her hand away and she laughs at him.

He doesn’t even intend to open the binder, it’s not like any of these kids are going to interact with them. He does just because, he’s bored, Carly and Michael are wrestling for the TV remote.

He should probably know at least what these kids look like.

In the cast photo they’re all amazingly young. They’ve got the requisite Mouse ears on and the old style sweaters with their names printed across them, he flips to the next page because he wants to see if they use the same cheesy sweaters in the individual headshots and drops the book.

Carly and Michael are both staring at him, he knows that. He’s staring at the very first picture in the binder.

His name is across his chest; his smile is innocent and happy and oh-so-familiar

He’s most _definitely_ not a couple of hundred years old and David thinks suddenly about a wedding band hidden now in a box in the bottom of his suitcase.

 

 

******************************************************************************

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where David is pretty sure he’s going insane.

**Time After Time – Part 2**

The Disney binder stays with him. He’s pretty sure that Michael and Carly had noticed that he hadn’t relinquished custody of it when he kicked them out, they thankfully didn’t ask questions that he couldn’t answer.

He’s pretty sure he’s going insane.

This kid can’t be his Archie, he just can’t be. (Even though he has the same name and same smile and…)

He digs through his bag until he finds the ring and it’s plain, there’s nothing ornate about it. Pretty much the only thing special about it is the fact that engraved on the inside of the band are his and Archie’s initials.

Emilie hadn’t been dissuaded, no matter how hard Archie had fought her on it.

The ring feels heavy in his hand and when he slips it on his finger the weight of it feels frighteningly familiar. He’d only worn it for a couple of days, it shouldn’t feel familiar at all.

He flips the binder back open and there’s Archie beaming at him.

All bright smile and happy eyes.

He looks unbelievably young and he checks the birthdate before he has a panic attack.

He’s 18 and David thanks god for small miracles.

He’s so completely going to get smacked upside the head by his mother if she finds out about this.

******************************************************************************

He finds the first season of MMC on line and there are familiar faces on it.

People that he’s seen in magazines, in movies, he doesn’t actually know any of these kids.

Zac had done _High School Musical_ and _Hairspray_ , Vanessa comes in at the tail end of season one and two of the three Jonas Brothers are there as well.

He can’t remember who dated who and when, but he’s pretty sure that one of the Jonas Brothers is the reason that Miley had tried to break her contract. He vaguely remembers a lot of talk about some pictorial she’d done.

These kids are all bouncy and pretty, the kid that can’t be David’s Archie is paired up with Miranda more times then not. He guests on her show and the teenie magazines say that Miranda is his idea of the perfect girl.

He rubs at his head and takes two more aspirin. He’s had a headache going on two days now.

******************************************************************************

There’s a meet and greet scheduled between the Idols and MMC kids before the actual concert.

They get a long list of things they can and can’t say to the kids. There’s only a handful that are under eighteen but even the over eighteen set are being pretty well insulated by their handlers.

David is pretty sure that the MMC kids don’t get nearly as long a list from the Idol’s handlers.

The ring is on a chain around his neck. He hadn’t been able to put it back in its box in the bottom of his bag once he’d dug it out.

He can’t wear it though, the fans would go insane and he already gets migraines when he looks at the message boards. Everything he wears, says, does, every person that he hangs out with apparently requires the fangirls input.

They really hadn’t liked Kim; he doesn’t want to know what they’d think about Archie.

The Disney kids are all well-dressed, soft spoken, they’re all wearing their ears.

David shakes hands and makes small talk. He can see the kid that can’t be Archie standing with Miranda laughing at something that Michael is saying.

The laugh is so utterly familiar that it stops him dead in his tracks and one of the Jonas kids looks at him funny.

Carly loops her arm through his and drags him the final few steps over.

“Hi,” Carly says brightly, she’s got a fake tone to her voice but still sounds friendly enough. “I’m Carly, this is David, Michael’s not saying anything derogatory is he? I’d hate to have to report him.”

Archie laughs softly; Miranda seems entranced by Carly’s tattoos.

Archie won’t look directly at him; instead he focuses all his attention on Carly and Michael.

“This is David and Miranda,” Michael says when neither one of the kids says anything.

Archie smiles, not a real smile because you can’t see any teeth and Miranda wraps her hands around one of Archie’s arms and leans into his side.

Archie still doesn’t look at him.

******************************************************************************

David corners Archie in the bathroom, he hadn’t meant to. But Archie’d really not left him any choice in the matter, he never left Miranda’s side, and whenever Miranda made to break away and wander off he’d latch onto her like he’d die if they were separated.

The bathroom though, Archie had no choice but to go by himself, they weren’t girls after all, they didn’t travel in packs.

David waits by the door and Archie stops dead in his tracks when he sees him. Any doubt that David might possibly have had that this kid wasn’t his Archie fades away into nothing.

Because this kid knows him and is staring at him with a stricken expression on his face.

“You’re not wearing your wedding band there Archie,” David says, his voice is soft; he doesn’t want to be overheard. Also, he’s pretty sure that’s not what he meant to say, it’s what comes out of his mouth though so he goes with it.

Archie opens and closes his mouth, like he can’t decide what to say. David really hopes that he isn’t going to attempt to lie to him.

Instead he just sighs, and pulls on a chain around his neck, it had been lying under his shirt, David hadn’t even noticed it. Dangling at the end is the mate to the band that is hanging around his own neck.

David smirks and Archie scowls at him.

“It’s not like you’re wearing yours either,” Archie mutters. He’s turning a familiar shade of red. David wants to touch him, hug him, kiss him, push him up against a wall… if there was a way to lock or barricade the door…

Archie takes a step back as if he can read his mind, crosses his arms over his chest and glares.

******************************************************************************

It takes David a day to get any sort of information on Archie. Like a phone number, an e-mail address, his home address. Once he has the number he programs it into his cell like the girl that he apparently is. The e-mail and home address go into his address book.

It takes another day for him to get up the nerve to call it and he’s slightly disappointed when it goes straight to voice mail. David hangs up, doesn’t leave a message.

He keeps trying and is getting used to the sound of a voice that isn’t Archie’s telling him that he isn’t available and can leave a message after the tone if he so chooses; he’s so used to that voice that when Archie finally _does_ answer David is so shocked that he can’t say anything.

He’d pretty much thought that Archie never carried his cellphone with him.

Archie says hello three times, when he says sarcastically, “Gosh, it was nice not chatting with you, call again soon,” David finally manages to say something.

“Archie?”

And then it’s Archie’s turn to be silent at the other end.

“How did you get this number?” he asks suspiciously.

David coughs, clears his throat. He doesn’t tell Archie that he’d had Carly call Miranda for Archie’s contact information. It probably would have been easier to use the e-mail address that Miranda had also supplied, or show up on his doorstep, but David had kind of wanted to hear Archie’s voice.

Even if it was Archie’s voice telling him to never call him again.

“Miranda,” Archie sighs.

“She was very pleasant; she was asking a lot of questions about Carly’s tattoos though.”

“If she shows up on set with one I know who to point her parents and the producers at then,” Archie says.

They both sit in silence on their respective ends of the phone line.

“I think we should talk,” David says finally. He’d be all for just sitting here and listening to Archie _breathe_ , but he kind of wants to see him and listen to him talk a little bit more.

It’s possible that he managed to get a bit attached during those couple of days they were thrown together.

And got married.

He wants to know how Archie had ended up back there, why Archie had never gone back.

“I don’t know what we need to talk about,” Archie says.

David pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it.

“Are you serious?” he asks when he puts it back to his ear.

“Well it’s not like we’re actually… _you know_ ,” Archie says in a hushed voice. Like his handlers will hear him talking about marriage to another guy and pop out of thin air.

“You actually stood through the same ceremony that I did, right? You know, the one with the rings and the vows and the sex at the end of a six hour reception?”

“You mean the one that was a _couple of hundred years ago_ , the one that _neither one of us_ has a piece of paper saying that it actually happened,” Archie mutters.

“We have rings and a really strong recollection of the events of that day,” David says.

He doesn’t know why it’s so important that Archie not fight him on this, it just seems like kismet, fate that the two of them just happened to travel to the same place at the same time and meet; and then both go back home and meet again.

It has to _mean_ something; he’s not going to let Archie brush it under the rug like it was nothing, just because it happened two hundred years ago didn’t mean that it didn’t really happen.

“You owe me two hundred and twelve years worth of anniversary gifts then,” Archie says, he sounds sort of resigned to the fact that David isn’t going to let himself be brushed aside like an impromptu Vegas wedding.

“What is that, gold encrusted diamonds or something?” David grins.

“A small country at the very least.”

“I want to meet for lunch, or dinner, your choice. I think we should at least talk.”

Archie sighs. “I want to at least get to choose the restaurant.”

“Fine.”

“And I think you should still buy me a small country.”

David laughs as Archie hangs up.

******************************************************************************

Contrary to David’s attempts they do not actually get to meet up for their 212 year belated wedding anniversary dinner until after the concert.

He’d think that it was Archie’s doing but Archie had at least tried. He’d sent over his calendar and he’d had 30 minutes on a Thursday where he wasn’t scheduled to be somewhere or to be enroute to somewhere.

The Disney group apparently kept their kids on short leashes. Pretty much every hour of his day was planned out for him.

If he wasn’t taping MMC, he was practicing for the next taping, or was guesting on one of the others shows, or was presenting an award to kid in a hospital or was performing at a charity auction/concert/birthday party.

David was really fucking glad that he hadn’t got tied up with that group. His Idol handlers just let him do whatever he wanted as long as it didn’t result in him embarrassing himself or the show.

They talk every day, sometimes for a couple of minutes, sometimes they lose track of time and David wakes with his cellphone dead next to his ear.

The only times that David actually sees Archie before the joint concert are at the two practice sessions and a ceremony where the Idols are all made honorary Mouseketeers.

He stands off to the side of the stage watching the MMC group warm up at the second practice session and even though they have their ears on they’re all in jeans and t-shirts.

David is beginning to wonder if they ever go anywhere without those ears though, it seems like they’re permanently attached to their heads, he hasn’t seen one picture yet of Archie without them… not that he’s been looking, Michael has apparently figured out that whatever is going on with David has something to do with Archie and has taken to sending him picspams when he’s bored.

Which seems to be quite frequently.

Archie is over to one side with Zac and the youngest of the two Jonas brothers, David can’t tell if they’re warming up or gossiping.

With the way the youngest one keeps shooting glances over to where Miley and Miranda are whispering in each others ears he assumes they’re gossiping.

Except they’re guys and guys don’t do that.

Archie laughs and Zac mock-punches him in the arm, laughing as well, then slings an arm over his shoulder. The Jonas (David is really going to have to learn their names, he thinks he’s singing a verse in their last group song with one of them) brother leans in close.

David has to physically stop himself from going over and flinging Zac’s arm off, Michael helps keep him from making a fool of himself by tossing his arm over his shoulder.

“The Disney people catch you staring at the kid like you want to eat him alive they’ll have words with you,” Michael mutters in his ear.

David glances over at him; Michael’s staring over at where someone has rounded all the MMC kids up and has them standing in a straight line in order of size.

Archie’s near the middle. The youngest Jonas brother standing next to him; thankfully Zac is a couple of people on the other side.

“Where’s my Idols?” someone calls.

David shrugs Michael’s arm off and leads the charge across the stage.

******************************************************************************

“Do the ears come off?” David asks.

There’s dead silence on the other end of the phone.

“The Disney people pay for the surgery once we leave the show,” Archie finally says, David can hear Archie laughing at him in his voice.

“I just wondered, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without the ears,” David says defensively. It’s not his fault that apparently the only pictures that Michael can find on the net have Archie proudly wearing those ears.

“You’ve seen me without my ears,” Archie says finally, now he isn’t even trying to hide the fact that he’s laughing at David.

“No I haven’t,” David says. “When?”

“About 212 years ago, I spent almost thirty days without my ears on my head. Though Emilie would have found probably found them vastly amusing.”

“You were part of MMC then?” David can almost hear Archie calling him a doofus, thankfully Archie doesn’t actually say the words out loud.

“I’ve been on the Club since I was thirteen,” Archie says slowly. Like David is a particularly unintelligent idiot, David doesn’t even know why he asked that, it isn’t like he hasn’t been to Archie’s official Mouseketeer webpage or his personal website or the Wikipedia Entry for the new MMC.

He doesn’t call himself a stalker because that’s what he has Michael for.

Besides he’s not stalking Archie, he’s legally married to him; he’s just expressing an interest in his partners’ activities and hobbies.

******************************************************************************


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David had conceded the restaurant choice for their first date (he only calls it that in his head, he’d said it out loud and Archie had made an adorable sputtering noise and looked around like he was expecting guys in black coats to come arrest him) to Archie because he wants Archie to be comfortable and if Archie’s not comfortable he’ll keep putting him off.

**Time After Time – Part 3**

The concert is… something else. David doesn’t even have words for it.

With the Disney kids involved it was pretty much slated to be a G show, maybe a really low PG show if you squinted at the stage at just the right angle.

There’s Disney characters on the stage and color and energy, and apparently Archie had lied all those years ago because he, along with half of the others does a tap dancing thing at the beginning (its vaguely reminiscent of the really old versions of the Mickey Mouse Club that David can remember watching in black and white when he was a kid, during the rehearsals his mom had sat in and looked completely charmed, he tries not to imagine stripping Archie out of that sweater while she’s standing next to him) then he does a fast tempo waltz thing with Miranda as his partner and he doesn’t make a misstep once.

He certainly doesn’t step on her feet.

Each group does four songs, then they do three together. One at the beginning of the show (right after the tap dancing thing the Disney crew does by themselves, David would probably have hurt someone if they’d come near him with tap shoes), one in the middle and the closing song for MMC at the end.

On the last song he thinks he has to have someone looking out for him, because he ends up right behind Archie in that one and even though its completely not scripted (and he thinks somewhere in the five hundred page contracts he’d signed it says he’ll be taken out back and shot once they come off stage, he doesn’t care) he puts his hands on Archie’s shoulder and Archie tilts his head slightly to the left and fucking _beams_ up at him.

******************************************************************************

David had conceded the restaurant choice for their first date (he only calls it that in his head, he’d said it out loud and Archie had made an adorable sputtering noise and looked around like he was expecting guys in black coats to come arrest him) to Archie because he wants Archie to be comfortable and if Archie’s not comfortable he’ll keep putting him off.

Even though Archie swears he’s not doing that and his schedule is really, actually that full all the time. David doesn’t believe it, when does Archie sleep? Or go to the bathroom, or spend five minutes by himself contemplating the meaning of life?

There is finally a night that works for both of them, which saves David from having to resort to breaking into Archie’s house; which is a good thing, because the breaking and entering thing would get the police involved and David just doesn’t want to go there.

His mom would kill him.

Archie chooses this fancy little place that David has never heard of, when he walks in, even though David is wearing dress pants and coat he feels really fucking underdressed.

He’s led to a private little area and Archie’s already sitting there with a menu open in front of him.

David notices two things right off the bat.

Archie looks nervous as hell.

And he’s not wearing his ears.

David smiles at him and the young woman that had led him to the table hands him a menu and pulls out his chair for him.

Archie clears his throat and even with the dim lighting David can see his blush. He could probably set the room on fire with it.

“Nice choice,” David says, he’s shocked to see that Archie can apparently get even redder.

“Zac suggested it,” Archie mutters. “I should never listen to him; even if he can’t see it he lives to embarrass me, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got hidden cameras somewhere.” Archie eyes the room nervously.

“I thought he was your friend,” David says mildly. He flips open the menu, and is pretty proud that he doesn’t manage to choke at the list of prices.

“He is,” Archie says. He’s still eyeing the room like he can see the theoretical hidden cameras if he just looks hard enough.

The waitress comes back and David wonders if it would look odd if he just orders soup.

******************************************************************************

There’s no bill. Apparently Archie either took care of it when he made the reservations or when he got there.

David would feel slightly put out but the thought of spending thirty bucks for a burger the size of his pinky and four wedges of potatoes that had apparently been his fries would have been hard to swallow.

They’d made small talk over dinner, talking about Idol and MMC and every topic but what David really wants to talk about.

Every so often David will have to get Archie’s attention back from eyeing the walls for hidden cameras and if he does that by laying his hand over Archie’s and squeezing, well hey, Archie doesn’t kick up a fuss or pull away so…

There is apparently a private entrance and exit that David hadn’t known about, when they leave they’re led there and there is some convoluted hand gesture where David hands his keys to someone he’s hoping is bringing his car to them, he can see why Zac might have suggested this place though.

It is private, discreet. Maybe Zac is just looking out for someone who is a friend.

Because no one looks at him in askance or takes their picture when he throws his arm over Archie’s shoulder and pulls him into his side. They just tell him that it’ll be a few minutes till his car is brought around and they never blink or pull out their camera phones.

“Send your car away Archie,” he murmurs into Archie’s ear. He doesn’t think he imagines the shiver or the way that Archie tilts his head closer, to that David’s lips are brushing against his ear.

Archie blushes again and bites his lip, toes the ground with his really shiny black dress shoes.

“I already did,” he mumbles under his breath.

******************************************************************************

David had picked up slightly before he left to meet Archie. His entire goal was to get Archie to come back with him and he hadn’t wanted Archie to think him a slob or anything.

He’s glad he did.

Because Archie is going to hurt something trying to look at every nook and cranny of David’s rented house, when David leads him.

The pictures on the mantle, the ones on the wall. He wrinkles his nose at the one that Michael had framed and given to David earlier in the week.

David isn’t sure where Michael got it from, it’s obviously from the concert, the last song and it’s the one moment at the very end where David has his hands on Archie’s shoulder and they both have huge ass smiles on their faces.

David tugs on Archie until he’s facing him and Archie looks everywhere but at him.

David doesn’t need him to look at him, not yet. He tugs on the necklace around Archie’s neck until his ring (the matching one to the one that David had slid on his finger before leaving the house to meet Archie for dinner) is visible.

He unclasps the necklace and twines it around his fingers. The ring is on the end of one finger and Archie is unresisting when David reaches for his hand, slides the ring firmly into place.

He looks up at David then and his cheeks are red and his eyes look shy and a little scared.

“I knew who you were,” Archie says softly. David blinks at him, tucks the chain in his pocket.

“That first time we met, with Abraham. I knew who you were,” Archie clarifies.

“What?”

“I’d only been there a couple of days, Abraham had found me and he had this whole story in place for who I was and where I was going… he’s like us, I think,” Archie muses, his eyes are distant and even though he’s looking at David, David doesn’t think he’s seeing him.

“A time traveler?” David asks. It would make sense as to why both Archie and Abraham had gone missing at the same time.

They’d both just gone home.

“Yeah,” Archie clears his throat. “When I saw you in the clearing, right after we were attacked I thought I was going crazy and then you introduced yourself and I… I didn’t know quite what to do.”

“You were all shy, it was adorable,” David says. Archie crinkles his nose. “Your parents didn’t freak out when you disappeared?”

Archie looks at him blankly and David guesses it’s his turn to clarify.

“You were there for a while, I mean you were bestest buds with the royal family for fucks sake,” David says.

Archie is still looking at him blankly. “I came back at the same time as I left,” Archie says, “it was the first thing I figured out how to do.”

“You can do that?” David asks. He’d tried and tried but never figured out how to not completely freak out his friends and family with extended absences.

Archie looks at him likes he an idiot.

“You’ll have to teach me that trick,” David says finally. Archie rolls his eyes.

“It’s really not that hard.”

David glares at him and Archie grins at him. He looks relaxed finally, or like he’s finally on his way there.

“You didn’t know who I was, so I thought…” Archie shrugs.

“You thought you could flirt with me and get away with it?”

“I wasn’t _flirting with you_ ,” Archie says all scandalized voice and wide eyes, it’s oddly, achingly familiar. “I thought we could be friends.”

“You had a crush on me, William told me so,” David says knowingly. Archie promptly turns bright red.

“Oh my gosh, they were trying to _marry me off_ , do you know how hard that would have been to explain to my parents?”

“Probably as hard as it would be to explain to mine,” David counters.

“I figured you hadn’t shown back up again so it was safe to use you as an excuse as to why I _couldn’t_ get married, but then you had to go and show up and agree to do it and…”

David looks at him, Archie’s bright red and David kind of wants to kiss him.

“You could have just said no, you could have said this isn’t the guy that I was talking about, you could have said I’m promised to someone else,” David says.

Archie looks at him and David knows that he probably didn’t even think about that, didn’t think about ways out of it besides his cursory objections.

He could have probably have gone home right then and there, he would have been branded a warlock or some such thing but David knows that Archie hasn’t even been back since he left, he wouldn’t have cared.

“Zac knows about you,” Archie says, he turns and goes to sit. Hands folded primly together in his lap. He’s not looking at David.

“Zac… not Miranda?” He would have thought of the two of them that Miranda was closer then Zac.

He could have been wrong; he’s still not entirely sure how the dynamics of the Club kids really work.

Archie shakes his head. “Miranda’s a friend, she’s one of my closest, Zac is my best.”

David goes and sits next to him; he keeps a respectable distance between them because Archie’s body language is screaming that he will fight David if David attempts to cuddle with him.

“Zac take Vanessa to that restaurant that he told you take me to?”

Archie chuckles softly, bitterly under his breath.

“Zac takes his boyfriend there,” David looks over at him in surprise. He’s seen the pictures; he’d thought Zac and Vanessa inseparable, the real deal. Of course he’s seen the same ones of Archie and Miranda and he wouldn’t have thought the two of them together.

“They do what they have to do, the contracts that we sign at the very beginning they don’t… they don’t allow for much flexibility.”

“Zac know you’re telling me about his boyfriend?” David asks.

“He told me I could,” Archie looks upset at the idea that he would share a confidence with David that wasn’t his to share. “Besides I’m not going to tell you who the boyfriend is.”

“You’re not?”

Archie shakes his head.

“Not until Zac says I can,” he looks over at David. “He’ll do the same.”

******************************************************************************

Archie is sitting on the couch when David returns, his shoes are neatly lined up with David’s in the front entryway and on the couch his legs are tucked up underneath him. He’s idly flipping through channels on the TV. David stands in the doorway and watches for a second.

Archie looks at home, comfortable.

David doesn’t want him to ever leave.

He’d probably look more comfortable if he would have taken David up on his offer of a change of clothes, instead he’d looked at David in horror. Like David had told him to strip or something.

He still has his ring on his finger, David had figured that as soon as he’d left the room that Archie would have put it back on the chain and hung it back around his neck.

It’s probably saying something that he’s still wearing it, but David can’t figure out what.

Except that the chain is still in the pocket of his dress pants and those dress pants are upstairs on his bedroom floor.

He gets tired of standing in the doorway; he could be sitting on the couch trying to see how close Archie will let him sit before he’d shy away or move or lie and say he had to go.

David is ‘stalking’ his own husband, he knows that Archie lives alone, there’s no one waiting up for him to return with a virtue that went missing some months back.

“I have an early call in the morning,” Archie says, the remote is still in his hand but he seems to have settled on one channel. David walks slowly over and he hears the beginning strains of the new MMC.

“I have four months left on my contract with the Club,” Archie says as David settles next to him.

David isn’t smooth about or it or anything, he puts his arm over Archie’s shoulder and tugs him into his side. Archie doesn’t resist, just lays his head on David’s shoulder and watches himself sing on the TV that cost David way too much money, but was completely worth it.

“You’re not going to re-sign?” David asks.

“Not many of us are, most of our contracts all expire this year. Most of us have plans that don’t call for singing and dancing in ears for another four years.”

David hums, doesn’t say anything. He’s pretty sure he’s not required to say anything, this was Archie’s decision and it sounds like he’s already made it.

“This…” Archie waves one hand in the air lazily. “Us… It can’t be anything until after that.”

David nods, lays his head against Archie’s and watches him sing on the screen.

Archie’s already got his ring on his finger, the matching one is on David’s, he’s not going anywhere.

He can wait.

******************************************************************************


	4. Four Months & Counting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four months goes by fast. It should be crawling along because apart from that one night they don’t actually get to see each other that much.

**Time After Time: Four Months & Counting**

Four months goes by fast. It should be crawling along because apart from that one night they don’t actually get to see each other that much.

At least not that anyone else knows about.

Michael makes rude comments about long distance relationships and phone sex that David tunes out.

He and Archie have other ways of seeing each other, it takes him a while to figure out how to come back around the same time (he thinks he only really managed it because he freaked Archie completely out by coming back four days after him and Archie had been quiet and pale and scared for a week after) but once it clicks…

They spend a lot of time just hanging out, it’s not like getting a hotel but Archie takes him to a cabin that evidently he and Abraham had stayed in on their way to the castle. It’s stocked with food and supplies and they live there.

They use the opportunity that most people aren’t afforded to get to know each other without the prying eyes of the media and their friends and family, without Archie constantly looking over his shoulder waiting for the Disney people to jump him for behavior unbecoming a Mouseketeer.

The Disney people keep Archie; keep all of those that aren’t re-signing on short leashes.

Zac and Vanessa have a ‘not as messy as the magazines make it out to be’ breakup two months into the four months until David can kiss Archie in public without Archie spontaneously combusting. The gossips all make it out to be _much_ worse then it actually is, David reads article after article about how they’ve been at each others throats for months, how Zac had almost hit her with his car, how Vanessa had attacked him with a shovel.

He laughs hysterically and scrapbooks them for Zac to keep, Zac helps by sending him some of the more obscure ones and printing out the ones that are only available on-line, Archie just sighs at them.

Because none of them are true, Zac tells Archie everything, and Archie (with the major exception of the name of Zac’s boyfriend) tells David everything. Zac would have mentioned murder attempts and David would have demanded that Archie stay away from him because clearly Zac and Vanessa were coming unhinged and it was only two steps until Archie was caught in the cross-fire. Archie would have ignored him, but David still would have demanded it.

It probably confuses everyone and their brother that now that they’re broken up Zac and Vanessa spend even more time together and they actually look happier then they had the entire time that David has known any of them.

Though they don’t go to events anymore, instead the Disney people send Archie along with him.

“Are they trying to get the public ready for you guys to come out?” David asks.

Zac and Archie have been photographed at six separate events, all the pictures show them shoulder to shoulder (or would if Archie was taller, its more like shoulder to the middle of Archie’s head), heads bent together, smiling, happy, sometimes a bit more friendly then David would like.

If Zac keeps touching the back of Archie’s head like that David might have to punch him at some point.

David has stopped answering his phone when he knows its Michael calling because he’s getting tired of Michael’s attempt at consolation because he thinks that Archie is cheating on him with Zac.

It’s not true, but the pictures are all rife with speculation and David avoids going to the official Mouseketeer boards because there are now whole threads with pictures showing a time line of Archie and Zac’s purported ‘romance’.

Some of them are pretty convincing. If he’d been an outsider looking in he might think there was something more then just friendship going on between them as well. Might think that there’d _been_ something going on for a while.

“It’s a compromise,” Archie sighs. He sounds as tired as David knows he looks. The Disney group is keeping them running, it’s like they’re bound and determined to get every little last drop of blood out of the kids before they don’t have any more opportunities to do so.

“Compromise?”

“ _Zac_ wanted to start taking his boyfriend to things and management said over _their dead bodies, they_ wanted him to make up with Vanessa until the contracts are up and he said over _his_ dead body, he was tired of playacting the perfect boyfriend. So…”

“So they sicced you on him.”

“ _I_ sicced me on him, he’s my best friend and he was getting ready to break his contract, he’d lose a _lot_ of money, he said he didn’t care, but in five months he might.”

“So you’re trying to be the good friend.”

“He’d do the same thing for me.”

And he would, David knew that. If Archie had been a seconds away from breaking his contract Zac would have yanked him in tight and protected him to the best of his ability, regardless of what it looked like to the outside world.

******************************************************************************

David figures out who Zac’s boyfriend is on accident. Archie doesn’t tell him, Zac doesn’t tell him. He just happens to be in the right place at the right time and he thinks the boyfriend is probably as tired of all of this waiting around as David is.

Four months has come and gone. They’re now two weeks past and Archie is still wearing his ears to three more events besides the one that _he’s_ really bored at right now.

Archie is dragging him along to parties now, he has the safety net of being the Idol winner so he doesn’t look horribly out of place and it doesn’t look as suspicious as it would if he wasn’t.

They do stuff together and everyone calls them BFF’s and speculates that he’s replacing Zac in that role while Zac is settling into the secret everyone _knows,_ but _doesn’t_ know boyfriend role.

So he goes to these events and he smiles and doesn’t say much because it’s really not his scene.

The only problem is that once they get inside Archie typically gets shanghaied by Zac and the two of _them_ spend the night joined at the hip with David grinding his teeth and faking a smile.

The difference between the night that David figures out who Zac’s boyfriend is and any other night, is that night someone actually disregards the fact that he looks like a prospective mass murderer and approaches him.

“You look like you’re getting ready to kill somebody,” someone says in an amused voice beside him, he pastes the fake smile back on but tries to make it softer, less like he wanted to kill people or more in the realm of a justified maiming.

Zac has an arm over Archie’s shoulder, and seconds before had been _touching the back of his head again_ … it would be _completely_ justified.

David’s _warned_ him after all.

One of Zac’s High School Musical costars is standing next to him. The one who had been very obviously gay in the movies (David had been surprised that Disney let them go there with as intent as they’ve been on keeping Zac from outing himself before they’re done with him) and wore all the hats.

“Lucas,” the kid says, he holds out his hand and David shakes it.

“David,” he says. Lucas laughs.

“Disney shanghai you into doing press or something?” David asks, he’d thought Lucas was one of the kids that wasn’t bound by blood to Disney but he could be wrong.

“Zac was getting ready to declare mutiny and Archie was tired of getting harassing phone calls,” Lucas says, his voice is still amused.

It takes a second for it to click, for things to sort themselves into the correct line.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, he probably looks silly, Lucas is smirking at him.

When he looks over at Archie and Zac, Archie is smiling softly and Zac is watching with an expression that indicates that if David lays a hand on Lucas he might find himself with one less limb.

“I told Michael to quit that,” he says after a second.

“He’s protecting his friend, it’s an admirable quality,” Lucas says, David knows that he’s not just talking about Michael. He’s also talking about the lengths that Archie has gone to protect Zac, sometimes from himself, definitely from Disney.

David looks over and sees that Lucas is watching Zac and Archie. The two have their heads bent together; every so often Zac will look over and smile.

He knows that the two of them have been friends since they both landed on MMC; he knows that they’re close enough that you can’t have one without the other. He’ll figure out how to deal with that, eventually.

“Yeah, it is.”

******************************************************************************

Now that David knows Archie arranges a double date. Dinner at the restaurant that Zac had told Archie to take him to and a movie that no one in any of their immediate circles is in.

The movie part of the night is only notable by the fact that even though they aren’t touching and it certainly doesn’t _look_ like a date, they still end up in four magazines with taglines similar to ‘Date Night with MMC and Idol’ as a result.

Disney has a conniption fit and Idol just sighs and rolls their eyes.

The dinner on the other hand is relaxing, Zac looks calm and happy and his face glows when he looks at Lucas. Much in the same way that Archie’s glows when he looks at David… except without the blush.

David isn’t sure how long they’ve been together but it’s been a while obviously. They finish each other’s sentences, Lucas orders their drinks and Zac orders their meals and they share a dessert that Lucas had said he didn’t want but then finished more then half of.

Archie watches them with a fond expression and looks really shy when he glances over at David. Like he wants that but doesn’t know to either ask for it or get it. David wants to tell him that he already has it.

David pulls him into a hug when they’re getting ready to go, just reaches out an arm and tugs him into his side and Archie just holds on.

“Love you,” he mutters into Archie’s head, Archie clings that much tighter. They’ve not really said it out loud, Archie always blushes and stammers and can’t quite get the words out, and David hadn’t ever been really sure what he was feeling.

He knew it was love though, he just wasn’t sure if it was love or _love_.

David’s wearing his ring, has been for going on two weeks (the net is going nuts, and he’s been asked about 50 times what’s up with it, only ten of those times were Michael), Archie’s is still on the chain around his neck.

He’s told his parents, his mother had been confused and mad (just like he knew she would be) that she hadn’t been there and she’s demanding that there be something that she can plan. He has to remind her on an almost daily basis that Disney isn’t done with Archie yet and she can’t make reservations or call Archie’s parents until they are.

Archie hasn’t told his yet, David thinks he’s afraid of his dad. David thinks that Archie is hoping to not have to tell his father and he wants to tell him that letting his family find out from _People_ or _US Weekly_ is probably not the way to go.

There’s one more event and he’s hoping they’re free.

One more event and he can put that ring on Archie’s finger and it won’t come back off.

******************************************************************************


End file.
